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The Photo Shoot

Closing my bricks and mortar store, but keeping the business of FeeFiFoFun Costumes, has opened lots of creative opportunities. One was working with photographer Wales Wong and her team to create a photography editorial, this month featured in Dark Beauty magazine.

Wales talked about the idea she was dreaming, this kind of vamp, a deadly beauty. She asked me to bring a selection of clothing and props to her photo shoot, but I had no idea what I was actually supposed to be doing. I just knew that it was a creative endeavour and something I had never done before … a perfect combo of fear and elan.

Carlos Spellbound took this wonderful selfie with us in the background.

The day was rainy, but Wales made each shot lush. Alayna Kellett, a model, instructor and choreographer, was amazingly creative and professional ~ even while naked and being stalked by Ontario sized mosquitoes. Carlos and Vivienne teamed up on transformative hair and make-up, so that I did not recognize the model from one scene to the next.

That’s me in the I heart Zombies hoodie and Heidi braids. A fifty something Grandmother leaning into the mud of a Toronto ravine and holding up the lighting while Wales make the shot. It was hard, messy and grand!

Today, after yoga class, we talked about creation. My peers were so in awe of the things I am doing. I asked one gal, what had she created. She froze and said “nothing”. It came to the fore that she had spent 25 years journal writing, but afraid her family would read it she destroyed all of the books. She hasn’t written since then.

I find it incredible, not that she destroyed the journals, but that she felt she had not created. The conversation ensued about child birth, parenting, grandparenting, business, art and not once did we talk about “work”.

Never ever let your age, income, gender, class, race stop you from finding the next chapter of your creative life. Creation is not just about fine arts hanging in the National Gallery, a Giller prize for writing or a good run at the Shaw. Creation is about expression in meaningful ways for your pleasure and by appreciating creation of your fellow humans.